Hera's fourth diary
by Rafi77
Summary: Chapter six updated. Ever wondered why Hera became the goddess of marriage? Read and find out! I know I have written countless fics about Hera but it would mean a lot to me if you read this one!
1. Chapter 1

_Hi everyone, this story is currently in progress, but don't worry, it will be updated really soon. This first chapter is more of an "introduction" to this story, but the first "proper" chapter will be up very soon._ Chapter One – The Wedding 

Dear Diary,

Today is without a doubt the happiest day of my entire life. Today is the day that Zeus and I are finally going to get married. This is the day I've been waiting for all my life. We've been so happy these past few months, and today after that long struggle with our father we're finally finding the time to get married. I've never been so happy.

But there's also something that's been bothering me about our wedding. My mother didn't react in such a good way when she learned that we were getting married. She never really approved of me and Zeus getting together in the first place, and I don't know why. I mean, she always used to tell me that if I was happy, then she was happy but I seriously doubt that right now. When she found out about Zeus and me, she acted cool but with a bit of a disappointed look on her face. Technically she wasn't so happy when she found out that I was pregnant with Zeus' child. That was just about five months ago, and she's been acting strange ever since. But still, I suppose that all of that will pass. I mean I hope it will, because I love my mother so much and I don't want her to be unhappy because of me.

_Really short, right? Anyway, I will definitely update very soon. Looking forward to hearing your reviews! _


	2. Chapter 2

_Hi everybody! I actually wrote a new chapter today. Please enjoy. It might be a bit longer before the third one comes up, but I'm working on it. _

**Chapter Two – Happiness ruined **

I spent all day that day getting ready for my wedding. I tried to make myself as beautiful as I knew how, using perfumes, and olive oil for my beautiful white skin. I just wanted a small wedding. Just my family, my friends. But everyone's insisting on making a big deal out of it. I reluctantly agreed, but I'm really not the type of person who likes big crowds making a big deal over me. I'm really not that crazy about being the centre of attention. Still, today's my big day. I love Zeus so much and I won't let anything get in the way of our future marriage, nothing that will make me change my mind about marrying him. I sighed while I thought about when we had first got together, a few months ago. In a way I kind of liked the secrecy that we had when we didn't tell our parents that we were secretly meeting each other at night. It made me feel sort of independent. Like I didn't have to do everything that my parents told me to.

At that moment while I was sitting and daydreaming about me and Zeus, I heard a knock on my door and then I saw mum peer in through the door. "Honey? May I come in?" she asked me with a smile.

"Of course," I said and smiled but somewhere inside me as she walked in my room I felt that she didn't have something good to tell me.

"Thanks," Mum walked silently into the room and sat down. I stood in front of her and said, "So, what do you think?" I said, giving her a twirl.

"You look really beautiful honey," she smiled at me, but she still didn't sound particularly pleased. "Is something wrong?" I asked her.

"No, nothing at all darling. It's just that I needed to talk to you. I know you're very busy right now but do you possibly have some time to spare?"

"Yes, I do," I said reluctantly. But what exactly did she want to talk to me about? I knew that Mum had never really approved of me and Zeus getting married, but couldn't she try to act a bit more cheerful, even on our big day, I thought to myself?

"You're wondering why I'm not acting very cheerful," Mum smiled. She must have read my mind. It's strange how she does that. "We need to talk," she continued. "Sit down for a minute dear. I just have some things that I need to tell you. I think it's important that you listen to me."

"Of course I'll listen Mum," I told her. "But what exactly is it that's been bothering you these days? You haven't seemed very glad about me and Zeus' wedding."

"Well," Mum started off. "I know that…well I know that you and Zeus obviously love each other very much, and I think that that's great. I mean, look how far you've come. You're even having a child with him," she said, nodding towards my belly. "But there's also something else that I need to say. Apart from all that, I was thinking that maybe…maybe it's not such a good idea for you two to get married."

That really shocked me. Of course I knew that Mum had been thinking about something important these days, but I never imagined that she would ever say something like that to me. I was shocked at first, but then I also felt anger boiling up inside me. I was angry with her for the way she's been acting, but now I'm even more angry. It was a long time until I found my voice again, but I tried to sound calm nevertheless.

"What?" That was all I could say at first. I waited a few seconds. "How…how can you say that Mum? I mean, I know you've never been too keen on this wedding taking place, anyone could guess that, but how can you tell me that? So basically you're just…you're asking me to change my mind now? Now that, as you've said yourself, we've come this far?"

Mum sighed and carried on. "Please just listen to what I have to say before you start shouting at me, sweetheart. I know that you're obviously in love and you're not willing to change your mind about this wedding. But I just wanted to warn you in advance. If you know what's good for you, you won't marry Zeus."

I still couldn't believe she was telling me all these things. I started to get a bit annoyed now. "Why ever not though? What is it about Zeus and me that you don't like, Mum? You know you can just tell me. You could have told me earlier as well, before we had decided to get married. You could have told me then, but you didn't. Why didn't you?"

"Honey, I just never imagined that you would consider marrying him. It just never crossed my mind. I was…ignorant that marriage might be a possibility. But then you got pregnant and I just had to accept the fact that you really are getting married. But it's not specifically that that I wanted to talk to you about. It's that…well I have a feeling that Zeus is not going to be such a good husband to you. I mean – your brother's a really good person really, and I know that he loves you so much right now, but maybe…maybe it's not such a good idea for you to get married to him. I always still carried on letting you two meet all those months at night after I found out, and I didn't particularly mind when you two were together but now…well, after you're married then things will most likely be…different."

"What do you mean different?" I asked her, still trying to keep calm. Actually now I was about to burst into tears. Why didn't she just accept that Zeus and me were getting married? "You're really confusing me, Mum. Can you please just explain to me what exactly your point is?"

Mum sighed and carried on. "My point is, darling, that Zeus is not going to be a good husband. I knew it from the moment he was born actually, that he will not be faithful to his wife. It was just that look he had in his eyes, and maybe…maybe other people couldn't tell but I could tell because I'm his mother and I recognise these kinds of things, you know what I mean? So, I don't mean to upset you or anything dear, but please can you consider maybe to postpone this wedding?"

I knew she was going to say that. From the moment she came in here, I knew that she was going to ask me to cancel our wedding. I spoke to her again, trying to sound calm. "Listen to me Mum," I told her. "I would consider what you just told me, and I must say that I'm not very surprised by it. I know you never wanted me and Zeus to get married. It's OK, I get your point. But you know what, Mum? Zeus is not going to be an unfaithful husband, all right? Can't you see how much we love each other? People who love each other are not unfaithful to each other you know."

"I know darling, but like I said I'm just warning you. I can just tell what Zeus is like…"

"You can tell?" I interrupted her. "No. No, you can't tell anything. I'm Zeus' soon-to-be wife and I can tell you. I can tell you that we will be happily married together. And I am definitely not changing my mind, no matter what you or anyone else says to me. I'm five months pregnant with Zeus' child and we're getting married this evening. That's for definite. Now do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"

"Of course I understand Hera," Mum carried on. "But I was just telling you this so that you wouldn't…well so that maybe you would consider that maybe you might be making the wrong choice in all this. Of course it's your business whether you want to get married to Zeus or not."

"Well then why are you even saying this to me?" I asked her again. "Why are we even having this conversation if you know that it's just going to end nowhere? Zeus and I are getting married. That's it. The end."

"We're having this conversation because I care about you, Hera. I love you too much to see you get hurt. If Zeus hurts you then I won't be able to bear it."

"If you truly cared about me, Mum, then you would care about what I want, about what makes me happy. And what makes me happy is Zeus. Maybe it's time to stop thinking about yourself so much and start thinking about others. Why do you have to go and ruin what would have been the most magical day of my life?"

With that I stood up and stormed out of the room. "Hera –" Mum called after me, but I left and slammed the door behind me. As soon as I had left the room I burst into tears. Why did Mum always have to ruin everything that's important to me? Why did she have to tell me that I couldn't marry Zeus anyway? For the remainder of the day that led to my wedding I sat outside my room crying, my make-up running from my eyes. A few minutes after I had stormed out of the room, Mum came out and tried to put her arms round me. I really wasn't in the mood right now and I pushed her away. "Get off," I told her. "I'm not in the mood right now Mum. Just leave me be."

"OK," Mum said gently. "But whenever you're ready to talk to me again I'll be right here. I'll be at your wedding and I'll be happy for you just like everyone else will be. Never doubt that I love you and all I want, all I've ever wanted is just for you to be happy. I didn't really mean to ask you to postpone your wedding. Do whatever you want, whatever makes you happy."

With that she left silently and gave me a tiny smile from the corners of her mouth. She paused just before she went away, and told me, "Just please take this from someone who knows what being married to your brother is like. Zeus might not be as good a husband as you think. And I'm sure that you'll be a great mother, Hera. It's always seemed to me that you'd handle the job a lot better than I can."


	3. Chapter 3

_Hi everyone, I just want to say thank you to my reviewers, I'm really glad you like my story. This story is turning out a little differently than I had planned, and maybe you won't find the rest all that interesting, but anyway, here's the third chapter! _ Chapter 3 – The Honeymoon 

With that I was left alone to think. And I thought a lot. And not only about how miserable my mother had made me feel right then. I wondered if I should apologise to her actually. I probably made her upset. But still, I also thought about what she had told me. "Zeus will not be a good husband," I remembered. Her words went round and round in my head, buzzing like bees. "He will be unfaithful to you." I never thought of this. I never thought, because I had been so madly in love all this time. I never thought about anything else. I had been blind to everyone and everything else around me. And I had also been blind to the fact that as a wife, I might have to deal with an unfaithful husband. But still, who says that I have to believe my mum? Maybe Mum was just telling lies to make me change my mind about marrying him because…why, anyway? Why would she even want to make me change my mind? Zeus and I are in love. We are going to be together forever.

So I just decided to ignore my mum's advice, and just go through with this. Of course I wanted to. I was so in love and so…well let's say so stupid then that I couldn't pay attention to anything else but my own instincts. And I imagined that of course I was right. Zeus had not shown any signs until now that he might want to be unfaithful to me.

When we left on our honeymoon to Samos a few months after our wedding, I was probably the happiest I had ever been in my life. By now we even had a baby son, Ares. Ares was never really a quiet baby either. He was a feisty little thing; he even liked to play with toy swords all the time. I wasn't very happy that we had to leave him behind for so long, and of course I can't say that I didn't miss my parents, even my mum, even after what she had said to me. Before Zeus and I left and we were saying goodbye to everyone, Mum came over to me and whispered in my ear, "Remember what I told you." That really made me think. But then I decided to put all my negative thoughts aside. This is not the time for negative thoughts. Zeus and me were just planning to stay away for three hundred whole years! Besides, since when was I known to be negative? Out of all my brothers and sisters, I was probably the most shy out of all of us. I never liked to get into any sort of trouble. I always liked to think positively about the future.

One night, only about a year after we had left on our honeymoon, I started talking to Zeus. A question had just occurred to me, because what Mum had said to me that year ago had stuck in my mind. Would Zeus really be unfaithful to me?

"Hey Zeus?" I whispered to him that night in bed.

"What is it honey?" he whispered back to me quietly.

"I - I know this might sound strange, but would you ever be unfaithful to me?" I asked him quietly. Then I waited to see what his answer would be. I didn't know why, but I was just the slightest bit nervous about what that answer might be.

Zeus looked at me and laughed. "What on earth are you talking about, sweetheart? Has this large amount of heat been playing tricks with your brain or something? If you think that I will ever be unfaithful to you, then you're definitely not in your right mind. I love you more than anything in the world. Never forget that. Never ever."

That reassured me. That definitely reassured me that Zeus really and truly loved me, and that he always would. With these words I just completely forgot everything Mum had told me again. But still, somewhere in the back of my mind, I couldn't help having doubts. I carried on talking to him. "Well, you see, before we left, before our wedding, I was talking to Mum and…"

"You were talking to Mum?" Zeus interrupted me, laughing. "How could you do that? You know you should never listen to anything Mum says! She has no idea what she's talking about any more. She's getting a bit old, I think!"

Then I laughed as well. For the rest of our honeymoon we just had an absolutely wonderful time and I had completely put aside those thoughts of what my mother had warned me of.

And so soon it was time to leave. I had to admit, I was looking forward to seeing Mum and Dad again, and everyone else as well, but as the time when we would be leaving Samos neared, my mum's words came back to me. What if, I thought, what if when our honeymoon was over Zeus returned to his, "previous lifestyle?" What if he starts to, let's say, seek his passion elsewhere? There was always a small voice in my head that warned me of that, but most of the time I just tried to shut it up. "Shut up," I said to myself firmly, even though I knew that the voice was only in my own head. "Zeus and I love each other more than anything, and I don't need you or anyone telling me that Zeus is going to be unfaithful to me."


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N Hi again everyone, I'm glad you all like this story. Don't expect the ending to be anything much, but I'd love some suggestions of how I can improve it as well, I don't seem to be writing anything particularly exciting! Thanks again to my readers, and enjoy the next chapter  _ Chapter Four - Infidelity 

Until about a month later, I was so happy. Just like I had always imagined I would be. But how was I to know that maybe my mother was right all along? Just two months later, I could almost feel my heart breaking. Zeus was actually unfaithful to me. OK, so it was just once, but still, once was enough. One single solitary time was enough to make my heart break. Apparently some nymph called Leto had slept with Zeus. I still can't get my mind around it. It seemed unbelievable to me. Mind you, I didn't find out by myself. Helios, the sun, had told me, because he has a very convenient spot up there in the sky, watching everything that goes on in the world, and then telling everyone who will listen. So I learned this from him. I couldn't believe that my mother had probably been right all along. At first I thought that Helios was just making things up, but then I thought, why would he? But how could Zeus do that? I thought he loved me. Was it all a joke then, everything that had happened between us? Was I just one of his conquests, and I had been stupid enough to fall for it?

Strangely enough, Zeus acted perfectly normally to me after I had found that out. He didn't even realise that my eyes were all red and puffy from crying when he came home that night. He acted his usual lovey-dovey self, but today after what I had found out, I really was not in the mood. I still couldn't believe it. Excuse me for repeating myself too much, but I'm just in a complete shock right now. Surprisingly, I never told Zeus what I had found out. After a few more weeks passed, Zeus didn't sleep with Leto or with anyone else, for that matter, in those precious few weeks. I was actually starting to feel a bit better. I thought that maybe what had happened was just sort of a spur-of-the-moment-thing. Maybe it just didn't mean anything. It could even have happened to me. I didn't want to tell Zeus, because I didn't want to ruin our relationship. I still loved him more than anything, and he acted like he did too.

But then one day, I decided that I couldn't live with us keeping secrets from each other like this. I couldn't live knowing that Zeus was unfaithful to me once. Then I thought of what my mother had told me. I thought, since he cheated once, he was of course liable to do it again. And now, since he was the king of the gods, he could do anything that he wanted to. Once a cheater, always a cheater, I thought. But still, that's why I couldn't help but tell him what I had found out. He was actually rather casual about it, and that was what bothered me the most. When Zeus heard this he took me in his arms and said to me, "Oh honey. Whoever told you about that did not even know what they were talking about. This was just a one-time thing, because I was feeling pretty depressed that one day. Don't pay any attention to it. It meant absolutely nothing at all. I am so, so sorry if it helps. I still love you more than anything in the world, and I will never ever even look at any other woman as long as time itself."

To which I replied gently and sadly, "I just want to know that you will never do this again. I want to know that you truly love me, and that I'm not just one of your silly conquests."

"Of course I do, my love! I've said that to you hundreds of times before haven't I? I will never do anything else to upset you, never ever!"

And so I believed him. I was actually stupid enough to believe him. I still loved him so much, so I wanted to believe that he did as well. It's liked that expression that my mum had once told me when I was little, "I'm bruised but I'm not broken." And I was definitely hurt. But still, there was one difference. My heart had not completely broken yet. I could still be happy. I could still think positively.


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N I am so sorry that it's taken me so long to update, I've just been really busy these days. Anyway, this please don't expect anything interesting in this chapter, but please review!**_

**Chapter Five – Stay or leave?**

Once after this happened, I visited my mum and talked to her about it. What she told me when I told her, I must say that I was definitely expecting it. She immediately told me to leave him. I explained to her what Zeus had told me, about it being just a one-time thing, but when she heard that she only said, "Nonsense! You have so much more sense than that, my love. If he cheats on you once, of course he'll do it again. I hate to say this, my dear, but I told you so!"

To that I only replied, "Listen Mum, I have to admit that maybe you were right, but you were also wrong. Zeus just did this for one time, and he reassured me that he loves me."

"That's rubbish! Honey, if you know what's good for you, you'll leave that man. Trust me on this. If you want to continue this marriage, you must be very brave!"

"I can't, Mum," I told her. "I can't leave him. I still love him more than anything for some reason. He's my husband. I need him."

So again, I decided not to follow my mother's advice. I ignored it once again. Mum reluctantly agreed to let me continue my marriage without asking any more questions or being so concerned and over-protective of me. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself. And anyway, Zeus had definitely succeeded in making me fall in love with him. I can never imagine my life without him now.


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N – Hi again everyone, this story is now finished. I'm sorry if it might be a bit uneventful, but I just couldn't think of anything else to write! Please tell me what you think.**_

**Chapter Six – The Goddess of Marriage**

So, did Zeus keep his promise to stop looking at other women? What do you think? Well, let's see, there was Danae, from Seriphos, there was Alkmene, from Thebes, there was Leda, from Sparta, and a whole lot of others that he had a whole lot of mortal children with. Of course he didn't keep his promise. And each time he had another affair he broke my heart into another piece. But from then on, after his second affair, I made an important decision. I knew that I had to be the one to protect the married, (and also single, for that matter) women in the world, I knew that I had to do that since I cannot fix things with my own marriage, I could fix other people's. In a way, it kind of made me feel better. And so from then on I was the goddess of marriage and childbirth, and the protectress of women and of the home and family. I knew that since my own family was falling apart, I felt that this was my responsibility as well. I did not want other people's families falling apart as well. I protected the women in the world, especially the ones in childbirth and the married women. I was the one who put people's marriages back together and kept them from falling apart. It is a pity that I cannot do that with my own marriage. It's kind of ironic really. Anyway, people worshipped me and sacrificed to me, especially at weddings, which made me feel better a lot of times.

Meanwhile, Zeus had started fathering hundreds of children, a lot of which he brought to our home, Mount Olympos. And meanwhile, I had definitely changed. I had changed from a shy and innocent head-over-heels in love girl to a bitter, bossy wife. I started punishing all of Zeus' mistresses mercilessly.

But still, I always loved him, even if I doubted that he did. And somewhere in my mind, there is always a tiny rattle of hope that tomorrow will be a better day. There are times when mine and Zeus' passion resuscitates itself. And being a stepmother to Zeus' children had definitely started to grow on me. Do not think that I am all but happy. I am happy a lot of times, but I am also sad a lot more than I used to be now. I guess I'm just learning what it's like to be "grown-up", to have responsibilities and problems to put up with. But still, one thing is for sure. My mother warned me, and I should probably have listened! But anyway, I love Zeus more than anything, however unfaithful he is, and I always will, no matter what happens. I will never stop doing everything I can to keep us together. Our marriage will survive.

_**A/N Once again I'd like to say a big thank you to all my reviewers, you've really encouraged me to continue my story. **_

_**PS – I'm thinking of starting another story sometime soon, so keep your eyes open if you'd like to read something else.**_


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